Friday, February 12, 2010

Did Anyone Say Spring?

Alberta Spruce lined up in front of a new bed

As our perennials lie dormant, Alberta Spruce and garden gnomes stand as silent sentinels in the snow awaiting the arrival of spring. The pair of Adirondack chairs sit as witnesses to foraging deer near the pond while Japanese and pseudocorus iris nap nearby.

Mr. & Mrs. Gnome standing watch in the snow

As gardeners and lovers of the outdoors, we tend to get anxious about now. The days are getting longer and the sun is setting two to three minutes later each day. The seed catalogs begin to fill up the mailbox and we sit by the fire planning our grand gardens on paper and in our minds.Chairs sitting silently by the pondCustomers have begun emailing and phoning with questions about what we will have available this year, with folks always looking for something new. We enjoy hearing from old gardening friends and from folks we hope will become new friends.

On cold sunny days, we go out to the greenhouse we built to winter over some of the plants we potted up in the fall. We putter with the plants while Sassy, our Westie, sniffs around for mice. She can't catch them but has fun trying.

Sassy, our resident mouserOn warmer days when the ground isn't frozen, we push back down the metal and wooden plant markers that have heaved up due to freezing and thawing along with any rhizomes that may have done the same.

Recently we met with some of our buddies at Presby for a brainstorming session during which a great many ideas were shared to make our collaboration even better than last year. Watch both our sites for information as it becomes available.

We hope spring will be early this year---we have lots to do and would like to get started. There are new beds to fill, Louisiana iris to plant by the pond, and yeah, the two or three beds the wife didn't finish weeding. (Ouch---I forgot she's the one who types these blogs!)

So the spring list is started and we can hardly wait and we're sure, neither can you!